Congress punts

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill are united on one thing: The best strategy this election year is to punt on any big decisions.

Senate leaders are set to join the Republican House soon to replenish the ailing Highway Trust Fund for just a few months. When lawmakers return to Washington in September from the August recess, they’ll very likely have to come together on a short-term funding bill to keep the government open because the traditional appropriations process is bogged down.

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And when kicking the can won’t work, lawmakers may simply avoid any decision at all. A deal to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs is faltering in the final stages while Congress is nowhere near an agreement to address the surge of children crossing the southern border. And forget any talk of a grand bargain on issues like immigration reform or a tax and budget package.

Congressional inaction is a time-honored tradition in the months before an election. But the stagnation in this Congress — even in the face of mounting national and international challenges — only bolsters the perception that this is really the least productive in history. And a thaw doesn’t appear to be in the offing as each party commits to seeking an elusive, post-election upper hand.

“The feeling has been: ‘Let’s just wait,’” said Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), a retiring first-term senator who has long sought a comprehensive budget deal. “There’s just too much of a tendency [to say]: ‘Well, it’s an election year.’ It’s always an election year around here. It never ends.”

Each party thinks its lot will improve in just a few months. Democrats are hoping to keep their Senate majority and prod purple-state Republicans from places like Pennsylvania and Ohio into compromise during a presidential election cycle. Meanwhile, Republicans are fixated on taking back the Senate, giving them full control of Congress for the first time in nearly a decade.

There’s a bipartisan consensus, including from President Barack Obama, that a high-profile punt on the Highway Trust Fund is the worst of the worst, revealing that Congress can’t even agree on basic issues that affect virtually every American. But lawmakers are about to pass it anyway, with Obama’s signature sure to follow.

To avert an August slowdown in road construction, Congress is set to make changes to federal pension accounting and extend unrelated customs fees to pay for just a few months of certainty for an account whose long-term future is in constant jeopardy. The federal gas tax has been stagnant since 1993, cars are more efficient, and Congress is projected to spend $15 billion more than the tax collects annually.

Two immediate solutions are staring lawmakers straight in the face: Raise the gas tax to keep up with spending, or choke off the federal program and leave it to the states. Neither option would be popular with voters, so Congress is going with solution C: Fix it later.

“It’s the clearest form of generational theft that I’ve seen us do here,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), a supporter of a higher gas tax. “We really are throwing our children under the bus in the name of us not facing up to tough issues.”

Beyond tax writers who’ve pulled $10 billion out of a congressional magic hat to buy a few more months for road crews, it’s hard to find many cheering the short-term approach.

Last week, before the House approved the measure, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) railed against the legislation, calling it “a pathetic band-aid bill with pretend money that will limp us through the next nine months.” Retiring Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) urged lawmakers to “stop the patches and budget gimmicks” and implored lawmakers to find political courage.

Both lawmakers then turned around and voted for the bill, joining 365 of their House colleagues. Just 55 lawmakers voted against the patch.

“We are doing exactly the wrong thing here,” fumed Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.), a rare dissenter on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

For every important, if incremental, breakthrough like new farm or water bills, there’s an example of Capitol Hill sheltering itself from the political pain of exacting unpopular policies.

After a lengthy, painful government shutdown last fall, Democrats and Republicans agreed to a two-year budget resolution in December that would provide some long-term certainty while giving appropriators room to decide how money should be spent. The deal included saving money by slashing future veterans’ benefits, the most politically unpopular provision in the package.